Reparation Being Paid to Descendants of African Term Paper

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reparation being paid to descendants of African America slaves is certainly not a new argument, either for or against. The world is full of people who in black and white see the need for reparations, be they financial or otherwise. To many, the ideals or affirmative action and other civil rights reforms are a form of reparations. Yet, the question is often raised as to why the rest of the culture should pay for a mistake made by a small percentage of the U.S. population, more than one hundred years ago. Additionally, within tort theory states that the federal government had the power to abolish slavery and yet did not and it therefore owes for damages. It is clear, without a doubt that something is owed to the descendants of the African-American Slaves, yet the question has always been who should pay and how much.

" ... The government is strictly liable for the damage caused by slavery because protecting this institution is analogous to carrying on activities for which tort law imposes strict liability. Fourth, we might argue that the government is at least liable to the extent that it could have abolished slavery in some peaceful, legal, and orderly fashion, by, for example, a program of compensating slave owners."

Yet it is also clear the U.S. federal government was not the only entity capable of the abolition of slavery, so should be only partly responsible for damages.

It is arguable that individuals, by action and by collective vote could have abolished slavery and individual states could also have abolished slavery, within their own constitutional amendment.

Other situations of remote similarity where reparations were owed, such as the those paid to Japanese-American's wrongly interned during WWII are different in the sense that the Federal government was soley responsible for the decisions made to evacuate and incarcerate the individuals involved. While in the case of the African-Americans there were many entities associated with decisions to capture and enslave African-Americans.

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There is a seemingly endless list of corporate and international players who were integral to the seizing of Africans from their homelands, to be relocated to America and elsewhere. This is in addition to the countless individuals who supported the trade by owning and working slaves on their own properties. Though it could be argued that situations where individuals were owned by representative government entities, should be paid for their losses, if a decision can ever be reached for what their part in the problem was.

The reparations movement has had a long and tumultuous history, as past attempts to obtain equitable relief have failed through common law, international law, legislation, and constitutional law. However, recent developments in these areas have pushed the reparations movement to the forefront.

The movement to build a case for reparations has in the past been difficult and non-cohesive, but recent strides have been taken to collectively identify corporations, still in existence and government entities who have partial or full responsibility for the slavery system.

For example, Farmer-Paellmann v. Fleetboston Financial Corp. And similar suits have renewed the common law claim for reparations by identifying corporations that have kept record of their involvement in slavery and naming the corporations as concrete defendants. By naming corporate defendants, as compared to governmental or individual defendants, the suits have eliminated an enormous weakness in past efforts, namely the lack of an identifiable and culpable defendant.

Many also argue that economic reparations are not a long-term solution as economic redistribution is the only real way that African-American Slave's descendants could ever regain any of the perceived losses from the slave trade.

Another argument in favor of and even against the tort theory idea, within the above note is the fact that in 1840 the U.S. supreme court, in the Amistad case attempted to abolish slavery and yet was ignored by both the U.S. government and most private slave supporters and owners.….....

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